Name: Rye Bread
Ingredients: wheat-sponge (prepared as directed in the bread recipe); rye-meal (enough to prevent sticking)

Why it works: Wheat and rye match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rye Bread

Ingredients

wheat-sponge (prepared as directed in the bread recipe)
rye-meal (enough to prevent sticking)

Directions

Prepare the wheat-sponge and let it sit overnight.
The next morning, add enough rye-meal to the sponge to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands.
Knead the dough well.
Finish the bread according to the same instructions as the wheat bread recipe.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Wheat + ryetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together404 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Wheat + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together209 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Bread + ryetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together59 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).